THE NATIONAL NURSERY^rAN 
207 
the resolution or your rejection thereof will answer this question. 
Personally, after the most deliberate thought 1 am capable ot 
giving the question, I am as enthusiastically in favor of the 
adoption of the plan incorporated in the resolution as I was a 
year ago, and my opinion has been reinforced by the action ot 
two of our largest district associations, the Southern Association 
at Atlanta last August, and the Western Association at Kansas 
City last January. Both of these splendid associations adopted 
unanimously a resolution favoring the adoption of this resolu¬ 
tion and the pending amendment to constitution. 
At Detroit in 1915 1 had the honor of presenting to you a plan 
for the reorganization of the American Association, and your 
commttee of twelve brought before you their report based upon 
these recommendations which you were kind enough to adopt, 
and which have since been your organic law. The constitution, 
as finally adopted represents the best thought of this entire com¬ 
mittee, and, to my mind, it is so nearly perfect that, with one 
exception which I shall later name, it fully meets your require¬ 
ments to-day. There is, therefore, no thought of reorganization, 
the reorganization occurred three years ago. In fact, under the 
broad provisions of your constitution, there is nothing in the 
resolution before us which your Executive Committee has not 
full power to do, and it is only with an idea of directing the 
Committee where they might hesitate that the resolution is 
offered. 
Again referring to the original plan offered at Detroit, in my 
address before you on this occasion, I stressed the necessity of 
a central general office, you will remember, and an all-year-round 
secretary who should be a man knowing the problems of the 
nurserymen, and who would be on the job three hundred and 
sixty-five days in the year exclusively for your interests. This is 
the main thought in the resolution now before us. Furthermore, 
the original Article VII of the constitution offered was practically 
the same as the amendment before you at this hour, but, in the 
wisdom of your committee, was offered as your constitution now 
reads. I am saying all this only to prove that while this matter 
has been before the Association for twelve months, it has in 
reality been in the minds of some of us for more than three 
years. It would perhaps have been unwise to have gone further 
in 1915 than we then went, but after three years, I believe with 
all my heart that we are now ready to make this Association a 
real business organization. 
THE SECRETARY-MANAGER—HIS OFFICE 
Very naturally around this man revolves many questions 
which can not be answered in a day, or in a year for that matter, 
and in the minds of many this is the real heart of the question. 
In approaching this question I have argued thus: (1) there is a 
vital need for a man for his enlire time, one who will give his 
all in service to the nursery interests; (2) that he should be 
about the biggest man in all the land, lovable, unselfish, a man 
of splendid mind and heart, and organizer. That he should know 
our problems, if not in the beginning, that he should assiduously 
make this his one study; (3) that such a man would be of ines¬ 
timable value and that he would command a salary commen¬ 
surate with the service he is supposed to render; (4) that there 
is always “a man of the hour,” and that for every man need 
there is a man. So reasoning, this has not appeared, to my mind, 
such a problem as it has to some of you. I was impressed with 
a statement which came to me after our discussion of this whole 
question last year at Philadelphia. Someone, in a flight of ora¬ 
tory, had made the statement, “A Moses is needed to lead the 
nurserymen out of the wilderness of doubt.” One of my friends 
said to me, in speaking of this discussion, “We need a Moses, 
and we need a greater than Moses, we need a Jesus Christ.” Now, 
both of these men were nearer right than one \vould think, for, 
after all, great problems, if solved, must be solved in a spirit of 
reverential service and sacrifice. The spirit of Christ and Moses 
is just as necessary in the successful conduct of a nursery bus¬ 
iness as in the successful conduct of a Sunday school, and the 
world is fast coming to a recognition of this fact. The man who 
makes good in this large place we are to-day considering will 
be that man who is willing to dedicate himself in honest, unselfish 
service to the cause of upbuilding the nursery interests of 
America. Can a man with these splendid attributes be found? 
Certainly. There are no truer men on earth than the men who 
make up the membership of this Association, and, if needs be, we 
will select one of you to put this thing over, and if you make 
good, and you will, we will build, in commemoration of your ser¬ 
vices, a monument that will reach to the skies. 
This resolution, you will remember, was last year referred to 
a special committee, and the following is their report as it ap¬ 
pears on page 159 of the report of the Philadelphia proceedings: 
“That when the Executive Committee deem that they have found 
the capable man described in the resolution, and when in their 
judgment, the necessary funds are available, the adoption of the 
J. R. Mayhew resolution is recommended.” In speaking to this 
report at Philadelphia, 1 stated that it was not to be hoped that 
the man would be found until the Association had gone on record 
empowering the Committee to find the man. The same thing is 
true to-day, and will be true to-morrow, in this regard. We can, 
if we will, my friends, both find the man and provide the neces¬ 
sary fund for the ongoing of the work before we leave Chicago, 
and we should, and 1 am confident we will. 
WHAT THIS ORGANIZATION WOULD ATTEMPT TO DO 
Some time during the Kansas City meeting a question some¬ 
thing like this was propounded to me: “How would you keep 
this Secretary-Manager busy, and what would this organization 
be expected to do?” Now, I would not presume to say what 
should be the scope of your Secretary-Manager’s duties, because 
this is a matter which would most wisely be left in the hands of 
your Executive Committee, but there are a few things which I 
think it would not be out of place to suggest as a probable out¬ 
line of at least a part of the duties of this office and its Sec¬ 
retary-Manager. 
(1) He should endeavor to bring into the Association every 
worthy nurseryman in America. With a membership of five 
hundred we have accomplished much good, but with a thousand 
members, and this is not impossible, we could do a greater work. 
Under this resolution I believe the membership will grow rapidly. 
To accomplish this your Secretary must, at considerable ex¬ 
pense, get close to the heart of the people he serves, but that 
has already been agreed upon because he must be an organizer. 
In this matter of membership there is necessarily a divergent 
opinion among us. Some hold to the opinion that membership 
should be “restricted.” “exclusive.” “selective.” that the sessions 
should be “secret,” that “confidential” is the key which will 
unlock the store-house of knowledge and solve the problems 
which confront us. thers of us believe that the fullest pub¬ 
licity compatible with business rules will best serve our interest 
and that seldom, if ever, s the closed door necessary, that there 
is little or nothing which conspires among the nurserymen 
which the public cannot be invited to share, that the American 
Association of Nurserymen should take over every clean business 
in the United States, whether the business represents one thou¬ 
sand dollars in sales per annum or one million dollars in sales 
per annum; that there should be but one question asked: “Are 
you doing a clean business, and will you live up to the constitu¬ 
tion of the Association.” We do not care how “little” you are 
if what there is of you is clean, and de not care how “big” you 
are, or how “oM” you are or how “respectable” you are; if you 
are unclean in your methods, if you are unfair in your dealings, 
if you do not intend to live squarely up to the provisions of this 
constitution, you cannot “play in our back yard.” There are or¬ 
ganizations doing a large volume of business annually whose 
business ethics smell to high heaven, and^ whoever they are, 
they should be driven into the world with the mark of Cain 
stamped in their foreheads. Whatever else we do, my friends, 
let us make membership in the American Association of Nur¬ 
serymen a synonym of honesty, justice, and truth. The wording 
on our letter-heads, “Members of American Association of Nur¬ 
serymen.” should carry with it a guarantee of 100% honest, 
100% efficient. 
(2) Quoting from the resolution: “That the Executiye Com¬ 
mittee cause to be gathered through the organization provided 
herein, statistics of every character needed by the membership 
in the conduct of their business,” this opens up a field of en¬ 
deavor so important, so broad, and at the same time so neglected, 
that one’s endeavor is limited only by the possibility of procur¬ 
ing funds sufficient to prosecute the work. I do not think it is 
necessary to elaborate this field of work because I am sure that 
research in one line will open up richer and larger fields. What 
I have particularly in mind is, (a) we should know' decidedly 
more about the costs of our products than we do. Rght here, 
may I say that success or failure of the splendid effort that is 
being put forth by the Market Development committee will be 
largely determined by two things: (1) the perfecting of a cost 
accounting system, and (2) the working out of proper standards 
which must obtain in the conduct of the nursery business. There¬ 
fore, I believe with all my heart that the hope of the Market De¬ 
velopment i)lan is. wrapped up in this question. Both of these 
problems will be committed to the organization proposed and 
both, I believe, can be solved. It is, to my mind, necessary that 
we endeavor to determine w'hat our costs are, both in production 
and operation, (b) It wull be entirely in order for this organ¬ 
ization to gather, compile, and disseminate information (1) on 
our annual needs based on averages during normal years, and 
(2) to gather, compile, and disseminate statistics showing sur¬ 
plus stock in hands of member growers, which will tend to es- 
